Pond Collection
Donated by Dr Caroline Pond, the collection is a by-product of four decades of her research in comparative anatomy and physiology, specifically into the functional interpretation of the anatomical organisation of vertebrate adipose tissue (fats) and natural obesity. With skeletons, skins and other fragments from over 400 animals.
Below is information on the current display.
Mammalian herbivores
Rhinoceros eat grass and foliage collected with large muscular lips; the horns, consisting entirely of compacted hair form in the skin over the snout. Oxford zoologist Dr Margaret E. Varley (née Brown, 1918-2009) found this skull in southern Uganda in 1950, when the ‘subspecies’ Ceratotherium simum cottoni was widespread and abundant. It was recognised a separate species only in 2010, mainly from DNA evidence. C. cottoni is now almost extinct but international experts are using the closely related C. simum and in vitro fertilization & embryo transfer, in attempts to breed from the two remaining specimens, both living on Ol Pejeta Reserve, central Kenya.
Primates, here adult ♀ and ♂ pig-tailed macaque monkeys (Macaca nemestrina), eat mostly fruit, leaves and small seeds, often grasping them with the hand.
Rodents gnaw seeds and nuts with their continuously growing curved incisor teeth, often hardened with red iron salts in the outer enamel; the deep roots and wide flanges for big strong muscles are seen in this lower jaw of a coypu (Myocastor coypus). Rodents can slide the lower jaw forwards to engage the incisors for gnawing, as when this beaver (Castor canadensis) fells trees, or backwards for chewing food with the molars.
Most Artiodactyla, including these deer and camel (Camelus bactrianus), eat grasses and foliage; their fine woolly hair protects them from cold and heat. The young adult roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) also had functioning teeth, as did the large jaw of a red deer (Cervus elaphus) but those of the elderly roe deer were worn smooth so it could not chew properly. It was found dead in an Oxford garden; in the wild, predators would have killed such weak animals before they starved.
In the horse family (Perissodactyla) the long molar teeth erupt slowly as they wear through eating abrasive plants. This pony (Equus caballus) had a good diet, the rate of wear matched the rate of eruption, forming straight rows of health teeth. But those of the elderly donkey (Equus asinus) became grossly deformed, some worn to the roots, others overgrown, so eventually it could not eat would have died of starvation had its owners not shot it, see small hole in the cranium.
Unique properties of the teeth of elephants (& mammoths) enable them eat tough abrasive grasses and wood, grow to 6.5 tons and live up to 70 y. They have the same number of molar (chewing) teeth as other mammals but the teeth of each jaw are used sequentially, not simultaneously as usually happens. The smallest tooth here comes from a suckling calf; as it wears down from eating some grass, its roots close and it falls out as it is replaced with a larger one that has formed behind it. This process continues, with teeth moving forward as they wear, die and are replaced. Molars of large adults weigh up to 5 kg each. When the last tooth is worn out, the elephant dies of starvation.
Elephants can walk very quietly because their feet are hard-wearing but flexible, with large fatty pads cushioning the bones behind the toenails.
Other species
The big cats are all specialised predators hunting mostly at night and often alone. They have good night vision and long whiskers (modified hairs) with roots linked to sensory nerves that pass through the many tiny holes in the snout and jaws. Their claws can be retracted into skin pouches, this remaining very sharp, as are their strong canine teeth. The molars at the side of the jaw slice the meat.
The patterned coat of this zoo-bred tiger (Panthera tigris) provides both camouflage and protection; the hairs fit exactly into the tiny hooks on the tongue for grooming.
This African lion (Panthera leo) had suppurating wounds from porcupine quills (Hystrix sp.) embedded in his chest when shot by rangers after killing a boy in 1969/70 at Senanga district, Western Province, Zambia. Minimal wear to his fully erupted teeth suggests that he was a young adult. The newborn cub has relatively large brain and eyes, but small jaws with no erupted teeth because it was still suckling from the lioness. Lion skin is thick and tough with bristly hair.
Canids such wolves (Canis lupus) and foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are hunters that also eat some plant matter. Badgers (Meles meles) have a mixed diet, mostly earthworms. This old male badger had very worn teeth; his sacrum at the base of the spine had been badly injured, probably in a road accident, but the wounds healed, albeit with deformed joints.
Most bears including brown bears (Ursus arctos) have a mixed diet including fruit, grass, fish and carrion, but polar bears (Ursus maritimus) kill seals, so have longer, stronger canine teeth. Bears have big flat feet (here from a black bear (Ursus americanus) and stout, non-retractable claws.
Most fish, including the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) are predators. The jaws of this juvenile show how the teeth are continuously replaced throughout life, becoming larger as the fish grows. Big species can produce, and shed, as many as 500 teeth in a lifetime, so sharks’ teeth are common as fossils.
Crocodilians, such as this alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), also replace their teeth as they grow but in a different way. Their diet progresses from insects and crustaceans as hatchlings then to fish and birds before they can tackle mammals.
The 10,000+ living species of birds differ in plumage and in the size and shape of the skull, neck and limbs. Penguins with long pointed beaks chase fish underwater, owls pounce silently on prey with sharp hooked beaks, swans find underwater food mainly by touch and smell, hence the many tiny holes in the tips of the beaks that held sensory nerves, also seen in the beaks of long-necked flamingos. This swan’s wishbone (furcula) has a healed break, leaving it asymmetrical. Parrots are mainly seed eaters with powerful jointed upper jaws. Helmeted hornbills (Rhinoplax vigil) eat mainly fruit and loyal partners and devoted parents.
In all ‘great’ whales except sperm whales, the teeth are replaced with baleen, a keratinous tissue derived from hair, with which relative tiny prey, krill, other invertebrates and small fish are strained from the water. Some, especially arctic species, have a long lifespan. This scapula (shoulder blade) and vertebra come from a minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), the smallest and most abundant baleen whale in British seas. The edges of these bones have been chewed by herbivores, probably rodents, deer or sheep, to obtain the calcium and other minerals after the carcase was washed up onto a beach.
Toothed whales, dolphins and porpoises, like this long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas), are mostly smaller and catch fish, sea birds and sometimes other mammals. They have many similar peg-like teeth.
All birds and turtles lay eggs and have instead of teeth have beaks consisting of bony cores covered with continuously growing horn. Many can live much longer than mammals of similar size. As these softshell river turtles (Apalone spinifera) and large marine turtle (Chelonia mydas) demonstrate, the turtle ‘shell’ comprises ribs fused with overlying ‘dermal’ bone that forms in the skin, covered with keratinous, horny scutes containing melanin pigments, similar to those found in yellow, brown or black mammalian hair.
In a single species, the hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), the keratinous scutes overlap to form pleasing patterns. Until plastics were invented, huge numbers were harvested to make light, flexible spectacle frames, hair combs and decorative objects such as this cigarette case inlaid with mother of pearl. Plastic imitation ‘tortoise shell’ items are still popular. Formerly widespread in tropical and temperate oceans, hawksbills are now rare.
